Travel Smarter With TripAdvisor: Part 3 – Where to Go & What to Eat

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I’ve written about how to book your flight and room using TripAdvisor.  Now for the fun part, deciding what to do once the wheels hit the ground!

TripAdvisor has much of the information you’d find in a guidebook, but it’s free!  It also gives you the opportunity to learn from the experiences of many travelers.

I’ll show you how to use TripAdvisor to make sure you hit all the hot spots.

Travel Smarter With TripAdvisor

• Part 1 – Finding the Right Hotel
• Part 2 – Searching for Airfare
• Part 3 – Where to Go & What to Eat

Using TripAdvisor to Find the Top Attractions

Get started by entering your destination into the search box.

Next, select “Attractions” to get a full list of results.

Don’t worry, you won’t have to read about all ~500 things to do (unless you want to!).  That’s because TripAdvisor gives you plenty of ways to narrow down your options.

Start by deciding whether you’re interested in:

• Attractions – museums and cultural sites
• Activities – tours and adventure
• Nightlife – clubs and bars
• Shopping – local retailers and galleries

I selected “Activities” and then “Performances.”

You can sort your results by ranking or name.  And if you log-in with Facebook you can bring activities your friends have done to the top of the list.

I chose to sort my results by ranking and came across the Pallas Theater, which would be the perfect venue for a romantic date night with Emily 🙂

Finding Convenient Restaurants With Delicious Food

You can search for restaurants on TripAdvisor using the map view or with a general search.  I’ll show you how this works!

Map View

I showed you in Part 1 of this series how you can use the map view to find restaurants near your hotel.  You can also use this helpful feature to find places to eat near attractions you plan on visiting.

For this sample search, I’ve chosen the Pallas Theater.  I can now click the map to start my search for the perfect romantic dining location.

The map will pop up in a new window with a pin dropped at the Pallas Theater.  Select “Also Show” and “Restaurants” to display your options.

Hover your mouse over the purple circles to get quick information about restaurants.

When you find a restaurant you like, click on the purple circle to drop a pin.  You can then click on the restaurant name in the drop down box on the left to read reviews and view photos.

Some restaurants also let you make a reservation online and there’s a handy link to take you there!

Browsing through the photos from previous diners, I see it does indeed have incredible views.

I also see that it’s expensive!

So I’ll save this for an extra-special date night.  Besides, I’ll earn lots of Chase Ultimate Rewards points!

Bottom Line

TripAdvisor can help you find flights and hotels for your next vacation.  It’s also a great place to find fun activities and good food!

The most valuable part of TripAdvisor is the ability to learn from the thousands of travelers who have gone before you!  You can view their photos and read their reviews to help decide where to go and what see.

Do have any tips or tricks to using TripAdvisor for creating a trip itinerary?